but one such program in california has proven hard to implement, as newshour correspondent spencer michels reports. >> i wanted the world to know what a wonderful, incredible person she was. >> reporter: for more than a decade, nick and amanda wilcox have been advocating timely treatment and early intervention for the severely mentally ill in the hopes they won't become violent. twelve years ago, their 19-year old-daughter laura wilcox, a college sophomore, was murdered by while she was working over christmas break at a mental health clinic in nevada county, california. >> at about 11:30 a client at the clinic came in and shot laura four times at point black range through the glass. >> what we know now after the fact is he had late onset paranoid schizophrenia. >> reporter: laura's murderer, scott thorp, killed two others, and then went home and took a nap. he was eventually sentenced to a locked mental hospital for life. >> we felt that laura's death was a result of a failed mental health system. we wanted to help prevent people from being so mentally ill that they would commit a violent